God, karma & destiny/fate

So I am an atheist and as an atheist I do not believe in karma, nor in destiny/fate. Im not sure if i stand alone on this one within my atheist community.
I find that karma cant fit into an atheist view because it doesn't occur in nature. Animals, plants & fishes don't seem to encounter karma. If the zebra gets eaten by the lion no karma is set out to get that lion.
Destiny/fate seems far fetched. My fiancee (a christian) believes that things happen for a reason. I couldn't disagree more. I believe things just happen, its coincidence, chance & probability at work.

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I agree. There have been times in my life where things seemed too good or too bad to be deemed coincidence but when I really thought about them, they fit better under the category of probability when all things were considered. When you have a truly open mind it is not hard to figure these things out.

I agree with you 100%. Destiny suggests that your life is pre-written and that would make free-will a myth. But I know I have free will because I am making my own decisions. I don't believe that there's an imaginary book somewhere that says what's going to happen, and changes it to punish or reward me for those actions when they stray from that book. What if destiny and karma were both real and I am supposed to murder a chicken? Would it be pre-written that I should have to pay the consequences of taking that chicken's life? It doesn't make any sense. I believe that we "write" (live) our own "books" (lives).

Are you sure you're making your own decisions? Who is "you"? Your soul? If not a soul, it's your brain, but your brain is just matter obeying physical laws, like anything else. We wouldn't say a star is making its own decision to collapse in on itself and go supernova -- it's just a ball of matter obeying physical laws. I know this is a big, difficult topic, but Sam Harris and many others think that free will is a nonstarter. It makes you think.

" I believe things just happen, its coincidence, chance & probability at work."

Exactly! I cringe when I hear people talk about their got's plan for them, their loved ones etc. Don't they ever look around and realize that if IT was there IT has better things to do than help Elroy get a job or aunt Dot's medical checkup is ok?

IT being the non-gender specific, non-denominational descriptor of their non-sense delusion.

You do not stand alone, but do not confuse atheism with skepticism. Some people claim to be atheists, "because they hate god," or because, "they don't feel it," not because they apply skepticism to all ideas/beliefs equally.

I categorize myself as a skeptical atheist. I don't believe atheists like Hawkings Hitchens & my favorite Joseph Lewis aren't skeptics as well. Because without the skeptism we wouldn't be able to rationalize his nonexistence.

I think this is similar to the point I was trying to make with my post about Plato's reason vs. appetite. Those who completely subscribe to European cultural thought (and refuse to acknowledge others as valid or even more valid) feel they need to put reason and emotion (skepticism) in opposition, but I disagree, they can coexist for the "reason" you mentioned. They are appositional. JMO

Point of clarification: If I understand correctly, you identify as an atheist because you do not believe that a higher, immeasurable power, which besides god includes karma. This is a consistent skeptical position (with which I personally agree). My point was that not everyone came to self-identify as an atheist for the same reasons. I made no claim about whether this was right or wrong, and I certainly did not try to make the argument that outspoken atheists such as Hitchens were not skeptics. Beyond those who don't meet a more objective criteria for atheism despite claiming the label (e.g. people who say they are atheists because they hate god, which is a difficult thing to do if you don't think such a thing exists), there are atheists who apply skepticism to the question of god or no god and not other questions or areas of life. In psychology, they call this compartmentalizing, and we as humans are excellent at it. I'm not saying this is a good thing, just that it exists and it is a likely explanation for why you meet some people who say they are an atheist but also talk about a belief in karma.